Etosha: Other wildlife

This is a yellow mongoose, photographed at Salvadora waterhole in Etosha National Park. The mongoose was a perky and inquisitive little thing. It sat quite near my car for some time, looking at me, looking around, as if it had not a care in the world.

Several days later I was back in this area and saw the cheetah, below.

I saw ground squirrels all over Etosha. These were my first, photographed between the Okaukuejo camp and Okondeka, a kilometre or two from where I saw the black-backed jackal, below.

They seem to be moving constantly. They run on all fours, but stand up like this to see what is going on. They eat seeds and roots, and hold their food in their forepaws to eat.

The ground squirrels live in burrows, and they run around energetically popping in and out of their burrows. Here, the two squirrels on the right were popping in and out of their burrow.

Sometimes, you're just lucky. I arrived at Kalkheuwel waterhole just as this rhino was taking a drink. He left a few minutes later.

There are maybe 2,000 or 3,000 black rhino left in the world (depending on which book you read). Their only predator is man and they are a seriously endangered species. Although there are 400 in Etosha National Park, I was told that visitors are lucky to see them out and about.

Without knowing anything about rhino behaviour, I figured I'd come back to the same waterhole the following morning. At least one other car had the same idea. Next day, we were both waiting at the camp gate when it opened at sunrise, and having reached the waterhole I waited for 2 hours. But the rhino didn't return.

This photo was taken at night, at the Okaukuejo waterhole. The waterhole is lit with a red light. The photo has been colour balanced to reduce the red tint created by the lights.

These two rhino seemed to find true love in front of a hundred or more fascinated (human) on-lookers.

A rhino is about 1.5m tall, and weighs about 1.5 tonnes. How do they do it? Slowly.

I think that this is a Kori Bustard. It was three or four feet tall, and stepped around the grass with a very deliberate gait. This one was photographed between Okaukuejo camp and the Pan waterhole.

This cute little creature is a black-backed jackal. They are found throughout Namibia, and outside the national parks farmers find them less than cute, because these jackal take young animals of several kinds. They also eat carrion, insects and birds.

When I first saw this jackal, it was walking near the side of the road, several hundred metres away from me. It stood still while I drove up (slowly!) beside it. When I stopped the car, it looked at me quizzically, then resumed walking. When I followed in the car, it stopped, and looked, then continued its walk. This continued for maybe a kilometre along the road.

One of the joys of visiting Etosha is that I could stop in the middle of the road, photograph, drive, stop, photograph and drive without any other human in sight.

Warthog live in family groups, and I saw several families at waterholes. I also saw a warthog in entirely different circumstances at Okonjima Lodge.

I found Ostrich difficult to photograph. They are skittish, and run away as soon as I stopped the car to look.

These were photographed at Nebrownii, a waterhole just east of Okaukuejo camp, on my first day at Etosha.

I am reliably informed that males are larger with black feathers; and females are smaller with brown feathers. Therefore, I think I have here a photograph of each.

At Etosha you approach a parked car with caution: it indicates an interesting animal nearby. I was driving from Salvadora to Charitsaub when I saw three or four vehicles parked on the road ahead of me. The silhouette of the cheetah was easy to spot in the flat terrain.

The cheetah was some distance away. This photo was taken with a 500mm lens.

I watched this cheetah for nearly two hours. He sat up. He lay down. He stood up. He wandered around for a few metres. He lay down again. Even though a large group of springbok was less than a kilometre away, the cheetah didn't seem to be interested in them.

I saw cheetah again at Okonjima. But the two experiences were very different. Here at Etosha I saw a wild animal eyeing off a group of tasty springbok, albeit at a considerable distance. At Okonjima, I saw cheetah that are habituated to people, fed by hand up close.

I think this is a Pied Crow. I know it was an inquisitive and raucous bird. As several cars stopped on the road to watch the cheetah, above, this crow hung around for over an hour. He (she?) hopped on to the top of cars, pecked around in the dirt, flew off in the direction of the cheetah, came back to the cars, generally made a great deal of noise, and here is eating some kind of fruit.

In the north-east of Etosha National Park, on the road to the Andoni Plain.

My previous expertise in identifying birds was probably sufficient to distinguish a sparrow from an emu. Even armed with a guidebook, I couldn't identify this bird. Brent Huffman of the ultimate unglate website tells me it is a lilac-breasted roller.

First, an admission: these two photographs of a spotted hyena have been cropped.

The hyena came out of the bush about half an hour after sunrise to drink at the Kalkheuwel waterhole, near Namutomi.

These hyena are carrion-eaters, but also catch young, sick or old animals of various kinds: even lion.

This hyena wandered through large groups of these helmeted guineafowl without bothering them much at all. They removed to a respectful distance, but did not seem too concerned.

The hyena hung around the waterhole for about 20 minutes, but never near enough to get a close-up photo.